Pi Corporation Acquires Smart Desktop, Inc.; Former Microsoft Executive's Start-Up Will Help Smart Desktop Deliver Innovative Software to Make Information Workers More Productive

Business Wire, July 6, 2006

SEATTLE -- Pi Corporation, a software company focused on creating better ways for people to organize, share and access their data, today announced that it acquired Smart Desktop, Inc. Pi Corporation was founded two years ago by Paul Maritz, a former Microsoft executive, and Warburg-Pincus of New York. Smart Desktop, which will operate as a separate brand, will create and bring to market in early 2007 innovative new products that increase the productivity of information workers. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Smart Desktop will commercialize the results of the "TaskTracer" project of the Intelligent Information Systems Laboratory at Oregon State University (OSU). The research group, directed by Professors Tom Dietterich and Jon Herlocker, developed new technology that uses machine intelligence to automatically classify, sort and organize information for people by observing and learning from their interactions with their personal computers. Smart Desktop negotiated an exclusive worldwide license to the TaskTracer technology, patents, and intellectual property from the University.

Smart Desktop's management team includes:

--CEO John Forbes, who has more than 20 years of experience as an executive in the software industry at leading companies including Visio and Autodesk.

--VP of Engineering Dr. Jon Herlocker, who has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota and was co-inventor of the technology commercialized by Net Perceptions, a pioneering company in collaborative filtering technology.

--Chief Scientist Dr. Tom Dietterich, who is one of the most respected experts in the field of machine learning and is the current president of the International Machine Learning Association.

Pi stands for "Personal Information." The company creates innovative online services that make it easy for individuals to gather information, organize it, share it instantly and securely, and access it from any web-based device. Pi users are not required to set up servers, explicitly copy or upload information, or surrender control of their personal information to an online hosting company. Pi is currently in limited beta test with its first product and will expand its offerings over the coming months.

Pi Corporation is headquartered in Seattle and focuses on creating software for consumers. The Smart Desktop team will also be located in Seattle where they will focus on delivering commercial releases of the technology derived from the OSU project for knowledge workers in corporations. As the Smart Desktop and Pi teams progress, they plan to share approaches and technology to produce better products for a range of users.

"Combining forces with Pi Corporation will accelerate the development of our products for information workers, and we can take advantage of Pi's innovative technology for securely sharing information across networks," said John Forbes. "With Pi's offerings for consumers and Smart Desktop's solutions for information workers, we plan to develop a consistent information management platform for computer users worldwide."

Paul Maritz, CEO of Pi Corp, said, "For too long, individuals have had to think like a computer and organize things according to the rules of software. With Smart Desktop's innovative technology, the computer can start to think like a person and organize things in a way that makes sense to human beings. This capability will help Pi fulfill its mission of helping people organize their information in better ways, and make their information available, anytime, anywhere without compromising security or privacy, and without being bound forever to a single mega-online provider."